Daily Reading for June 19
Wild animals don’t have to accept themselves. They can simply be. As thinking animals, we must work to create some space for our wild natures, to give them room to roam. Whether keeping our awareness on the breath as we meditate, on our bodies’ rhythm as we run, on our sensations as we sink our hands in bread dough, our practice anchors us in our bodies, takes us further into our wild selves. With time such practice begins to open a space within us. Call it a wildlife preserve, a space where our wild selves can breathe while our judging, criticizing, worrying, doubting minds are kept safely on the other side of the fence. With practice we find ourselves living more and more inside this preserve, a place we come to recognize as our true home.
We practice wildness so that we may live more fully and constantly in the midst of anima, in the midst of soul. Wildness will not save us from misfortune. Fear, doubt, grief all lie in wait to strike and seize us as before. Only now their grip will not be so tight or last so long. In life’s thicket we will have created a clearing for our wild selves. And in that clearing, in the face of confusion and worry, in the face of failure and loss, in the face of death itself, we will lift our noses to the moon and sing.
From Learning to Fall: The Blessings of an Imperfect Life by Philip Simmons (Bantam Books, 2000).